I’m currently doing work on a story called Monster Girl Hot Spring, this post is about the conlang I’ve been putting together for it, which the protagonist must learn in the early chapters.

background

MGHS takes place at a particular crossroads, roughly equidistant between three large state societies based on the Roman, Parthians, and the Han Dynasty. this is a fantasy setting, not an historical one, where these three states have created the Sul San-Imperi, or the “Peaceful Three-Empires”. The keystone of the “Sulsan” is the neutral zone, areas in which no empire can send military forces, and it is in one of these neutral zones that the crossroads exists, where people from three distinct linguistic traditions must communicate with one another.

some rules

syllables are usually CVC with a strong preference for CV. latin C is always a hard “k” sound. many complex clusters are simplified (eg pretium -> preti). tonality is dropped, final stops (p, t, k) are usually dropped, final nasals (m, n, ng) are usually retained.

adjectives usually follow the noun they modify (eg “food bad” -> “cibu druz”) except in cases where the noun-adjective pair is being used as just a noun, where the order is usually reversed and a hyphen is added (eg “hot spring” -> “garm-awa”). this means that “adjective-noun adjective” is a perfectly fine construction in some cases, eg “the dirty hot spring” -> “garm-awa sordes”. because there is no dictionary defining what words should be, the order for fused adjective noun pairs is not always consistent, however in English The hyphen convention is consistent, if you see a hyphen that means that that pair is being used as a single noun, which makes for different contextual meanings (eg “fa-forma” -> “shapechanging magic” vs “fa forma” -> magical form).

pronouns are genderless (the whole language is)

  • Ego - I
  • Tu - you
  • El - they (singular)
  • Muli-ego - we
  • Muli-Tu - ya’ll
  • Muli-el - they (plural)

verbs do not conjugate. verbs are often combined with nouns to create more complex verbs (eg “faka igi” - make fire).

Tense Mood Aspect are generally expressed in TMA order.

particles:

  • Jam - past tense
  • Postea - future tense
  • Duru - progressive
  • de / e - ownership
  • ma / ne - question
  • muli - multiplicative

plurals may be made from noun stacking (“Nan nan” - much bread) or the multiplicative particle (“muli nan” - much bread) or both (“muli muli nan” - a truly massive amount of bread)

emphasis is often added by multilingual stacking, eg “Awa hui ab” - water water water.

“caravan script” is the typical writing system, which uses an abjad (glyphs representing consonants)

greetings

greetings from all three “parent” languages are in full usage, but their connotation shifts slightly in the context of the crossroads.

  • Salve - the “transactional” greeting, said at the beginning of business or at a trading stall
  • Dorud - the “campfire” greeting, said when offering a place by the fire (also applies when entering a hospitality business, like an inn or a tavern)
  • An - the “casual” greeting, said when passing on the road without stopping, or when acknowledging a close friend or family member
  • Ho - “Attention!” or “Look here!”
  • Abi / Kha - Go away / leave / goodbye

etiquette

  • Ma-rang? - “How are you?”
  • Bene - “good” but also “please” eg “da awa, bene” - give water, please
  • Gratias / Spas / La - thank you, can be stacked for emphasis
  • Ita-de - “yes” or “confirm”
  • Nobu - “no” or “deny”
  • ego sum [name] - i am [name]

stuff

  • Cibu / Midzu - food
  • nan - bread
  • awa / hui / ab - water
  • igi / xwa - fire
  • auru / kem / zar - gold (currency)
  • ajen / ngem / sim - silver (currency)
  • kupru - copper (currency)
  • may - alcohol

places

  • guan / tem - inn
  • tsu-tym - “wine inn”, tavern
  • dolo - “does it hurt” (playful connotation, used when drinking strong drinks)
  • garm-awa - hot spring

verbs

  • mai - buy/sell
    • fun fact: the old chinese/eastern han version of this word had different endings for buy/sell (a glottal stop/-s suffix respectively), but modern chinese distinguishes them with a tone. neither the ending nor the tone exist in crossroads pidgin, so this becomes a homophone - it is common practice to distinguish which one you mean with a gesture, palm up is buy / palm down is sell.
  • mane - stay
  • abi - leave
  • lava-lo - to bathe
  • da - give
  • faka - make

questions

  • quantu / tai-ju - how much
  • quot nox - how many nights
  • nomen-tibi - what is your name

concepts

  • preti - price
  • baj - tax/toll
  • miman - guest
  • mundus / ki - clean
  • sordes - dirty
  • sulsan - “guest right”. to have sulsan is to be offered the safety of a caravansarai or the shared warmth of a campfire, to violate sulsan is to steal from your host

magic

  • fa - magic (often a suffix, eg “igi-fa” - magical fire)
  • drago-lung / azda - dragon
  • fa-forma - shapeshifting